Support! United Airways billed me an further $386 for a Thanksgiving flight | Vacation Troubleshooter

When United Airlines erroneously marks Catherine O’Connor as a “no show” on her Thanksgiving flight, she has to pay back for a new 1-way ticket property. Does United owe her a refund?

Q: I booked a spherical-trip flight from Washington, D.C., to Chicago for Thanksgiving. The first flight was supposed to depart from Washington at 10:45 a.m. on Thanksgiving and return on Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m.

When I arrived at the gate, United declared that a flight attendant did not clearly show up for do the job that day, and United experienced no added flight attendants on reserve. They could not give us an believed departure time and claimed that the flight was delayed “indefinitely.” 

Given that it was Thanksgiving early morning, I spoke to a ticket agent about other flights going to Chicago. He put me on standby for the 11:45 a.m. flight, which was complete, and stated I was verified on the 12:45 p.m. flight in situation my primary flight was even now delayed past 12:45 p.m., but that I would eliminate my seat on my original flight. 

I ended up receiving on my initial flight and flew to Chicago with a 90-moment hold off. When I went to test in for my return flight, United had canceled it simply because they had no report of me acquiring on my original flight from Washington to Chicago. I had to pay $386 for a one-way ticket from Chicago to Washington. 

I emailed the typical consumer complaint account and asked for a refund of the total, but they refunded my first spherical-trip purchase of $317, and not my added $386. I am searching for payment of the $386 that I had to pay out for the 1-way ticket that resulted from them owning no report of me receiving on my preliminary flight. — Catherine O’Connor, Washington, D.C.

A: United Airways must have saved much better data. You clearly flew to Chicago for Thanksgiving, and you could demonstrate it by showing them your boarding passes. This was a clerical error on United’s aspect, and United should really have mounted it rather of charging you for an added one-way ticket.

If an airline has no record of you boarding an outbound flight, it will cancel the rest of your journey. Airways do that to no cost up empty seats, but also to reduce folks from skipping legs of their flight, which can price tag an airline lost revenue chance. So United was just pursuing its very own rules.

When you questioned United to right the miscalculation, it really should have paid you the variation involving the unique flight and the 1-way ticket. But evidently that was much too tough for its method. As a substitute, it just refunded the unique ticket, leaving you $69 poorer. 

You could have arrived at out to United through its web site or social media to prompt the airline to just take a second glance at your scenario. Or you could have contacted a United Airlines supervisor. I listing the names, figures and emails of the United Airways supervisors on my customer advocacy website, Elliott.org.

I contacted United Airways on your behalf. After your initial criticism, the airline experienced sent you a $150 flight voucher. After I intervened, United credited you the $69 and also authorized you to maintain the voucher.